The aim of this paper was to study what impact sports participation has on young people and how nonprofit people and representatives of sports associations work to counter exclusion and how they contribute to inclusion. We investigated if, and if so how, participation in sports and physical activities can generate inclusion and counteract exclusion for young people. In this study we have completed six qualitative interviews with non-profit persons and representatives of sports associations. We interviewed two people who work voluntarily in sports and four people who have a leadership role in sports associations in a specific municipality. This selection was made in order for us to get a broader picture of how the strategies of non-profit and associations might differ in practice regarding exclusion and inclusion for young people. Based on our respondents' answers from the interviews, we have identified four main themes; expectations and demands, the socialization arena, working methods and the negative and positive factors of sports. We analyzed these themes based on previous research and theory sections and to our purpose and issues. The main conclusion we made was that sport contributes to community, belonging, joy, exercise, reduced risk of physical and mental illnesses and facilitates the integration of newly immigrated youth. Our conclusion regarding negative factors with sports are that young people might develop some form of eating disorder, overload their bodies if they exercise too much and that the risks of getting physical injuries might increase if they participate in sports too much. In response to our last research question, it emerges that economy might be an exclusive factor that sport associations try to prevent in different ways. The associations and the working methods of the non-profit people differ in terms of generating inclusion and counteracting exclusion.

The aim of this study was to examine the concept of “integration” within residential care homes for unaccompanied children. More specifically its aim was to find out how the social workers themselves within residential care homes for unaccompanied children understand the concept of integration and how they work for it. The study was based on a qualitative semi-structured interviews with seven social workers within four residential care homes for unaccompanied children. Six themes were identified that seemed to play a role in the discussions about integration: development-acceptance, learning process, communication & relationships, process, personality and common sense. The analysis was based on previous research in the field and the theory of action by Pierre Bourdieu called practical reason. As a conclusion the first three themes can be seen as an understanding of the concept of “integration”. The last three themes exemplify the practical integration work. Despite the lack of regulatory documents, the social workers show a common understanding of the concept and a similar implementation which can be explained by a dominant implicit doxa within the field.

This studie explores how a promotive youth movement that aims to activate adolescents in economically and socially exposed areas, can affect the youth’s participation in society and oppose their experience of stigmatization. The youth movement, whom is being studied, uses urban art expressions as a mean to engage and motivate the adolescents. The empirism has mostly been collected by a limited participatory observation, and through qualitative interviews with staff and adolescents in the movement. The result has been analyzed through Pierre Bourdieus field theory. To summarise, field theory consists in the hypothesis that the individual is socialized in to his or her way of thinking and being (habitus), based on in which circumstances the individual is raised (in which field). Habitus affects the choices the individual makes throughout life. An individuals habitus is affected by three types of capital, which Bourdieu has named economical-, social-, and cultural capital. This essay analyzes how the promotive youth movement contributes to the adolescent’s social- and cultural capital. I have found that this largely happens by giving the adolescents different types of tools to be seen and heard, based on the concept of hip hop as a political instrument. The most prominent tool in the everyday activities is the opportunity to record music in a professional studio. Other tools that are used are the opportunity to host the movements own radio show, participate in the arranging of different types of events, and such. I have also found that the support from an extra adult and the connection within the movement are central providers of social capital.

The aim of this study was to analyse how Swedish courts reason about the child's best in custody and access disputes. We have assumed different themes to analyse our empirical data, these themes were the child's best interests, perspective on the child's best interests, child's perspective, children as subjects or objects and finally the right of the child or the child's best interests. Our empirical data have consisted of 15 City Court and Court of Appeal judgments of the Swedish courts handed down in 2015. The study had a qualitative disposition and the selection was made strategically to make sure the empirical data would be relevant to our issues. We have used a discourse analysis where the intention was to study how the court reason about the child’s interests and what statements that gets preference and what gets excluded in the assessment. Our theoretical starting point was extracted from Foucault’s theory about power and his discourse concept. We have used the concept of his theory in our analysis, but also extracted the theoretical concepts from previous research. The result shows that the Court's assessment of what is in the child’s best interest is based primarily on a professional and adult perspective on the child's situation. The individual child's perspective was excluded and the Court was principally talking about children's needs and interests in general. The result also showed that children were seen as objects and not as participants in the majority of the cases.

The purpose of this study was to investigate how former pupils in a daycareschool experienced there stay, in relation to the ordinary school. The method we used was an qualitative interview study with former pupils of a daycareschool. We have analyzed the result with help of Goffmans theory about stigma, Beckers labeling theory, Antonovskys SOC (a Sense Of Coherence) concept and Gjaerums theory of controlling. After analyzing the results we came to the conclution that the pupils where stigmatized and labeled as deviants in the ordinary school whilst in the daycareschool they got an enhanced SOC and a feeling of control. Due to the daycareschool’s work with these pupils they no longer sees as stigmatized and labeled.

The aim of the study was to gain a deeper understanding of the administrative officials work with assessments in home studies of adoption. To answer the purpose, we chose to focus on the guidelines for administrative official’s assessments in home studies of adoption and what assessment areas that is fundamental to the administrative official’s assessments. The study is structured on the basis of a qualitative approach where we have used semi-structured interviews. We interviewed seven administrative officials in the social services which conducted home studies of adoption. The interviews were conducted in different municipalities in order to demonstrate that the result does not depend on local circumstances. We can however say that administrative officials in the various municipalities had close cooperation among themselves, which resulted in that the local factor could have some impact on the result. We have analysed the results based on theories of discretion and the street-level bureaucracy. We have in this study concluded that all administrative officials used the same guidelines and almost all of the administrative officials used the same investigation method. Even though all the administrative officials emanated from the same guidelines and though almost all of the seven administrative officials also used the same investigating method, we discovered in the results and analysis section that the implementation in home studies of adoption may differ between administrative officials in the various municipalities. We have interpreted this result as a consequence based on how each administrative official uses their discretion. Furthermore we found that the administrative officials did not think that there was one assessment area that was more important. There are a number of areas that are important to consider which depends on the applicant's background.

Title: Disability policy program – a case study of a municipals implementation of UNs Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

Supervisor: Marianne Westring-Nordh

Assessor: Ulf Drugge

This study aims to examine how a small municipal in southern Sweden works with the implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and examine the assistant officers knowledge about this work and user organizations inclusion and user involvement.

The study operates from a qualitative approach based on the results of nine semi-structured interviews with local politicians, assistance officers and representatives from three different user organizations.

The results show that the municipal has chosen to work with the implementation of the convention by creating policy programs for their departments through dialogue with user organizations, and by mapping the accessibility to public places. The results also show that the assistant officers have been given no information regarding the convention or the policy programs from their employers and instead operate from national legislations and prepositions. The user organizations feel that they were initially included in the process, but that their impact has later been removed due to structural reorganization.

Currently, eldercare has trouble with recruiting employees, which results in an increase in staff turnover. High turnover affects the quality of care and reduces motivation and job satisfaction. Raising motivation and job satisfaction would improve the well-being of both the staff and the elderly. The aim of this study was to examine hygiene factors and motivation factors according to Herzberg’s twofactor theory of care-home staff. This was examined according to which factors motivates staff to stay at their workplace. Data was gathered using a questionnaire, designed with the help of Herzberg’s 14 factors. The participants for the study were chosen because of availability to the study in terms of time and geographical proximity. 43 respondents participated in the study. The data of the study was analyzed through descriptive statistics and inferential statistics. Results showed that the most positive estimated hygiene factors were interpersonal relations (40%) and job security (37%). The most positive estimated motivation factors were responsibility (44%) and recognition (37%). The factors that the respondent thought motivated them to stay at their workplace were work itself (56%) and job security (49%). We did not find a significance of the inferential statistics, but we found a significance correlation between the estimated hygiene and motivation factors (r = .73, P <. 001). In conclusion, both hygiene factors and motivation factors were equally as important to staff’s motivation to stay at their workplace. The study enlightens the importance of understanding what creates job satisfaction of care home staff to decrease turnover among staff and increase the well-being and the quality of care for the elderly.

The purpose of this study was to investigate how family law secretaries in Sweden works with fulfilling the best interests of the child in collaboration talks and how they get children involved in the process. I have performed five semi-constructed interviews with family law secretaries from different municipalities. In order to achieve broader answers to my questions I have chosen to use a qualitative method. This method was also chosen to enable the possibility of follow-up questions. I gathered data from previous research in this area by searching after these keywords; child’s best, collaboration talk, custody, family law, children’s participation in investigations. The collected data was then analyzed with three different theories; Michael Lipsky’s theory about grass root bureaucrats, Svensson, Johansson & Laanemets’ theory about the social worker role and Roger Hart’s participation model. The participants that were interviewed all stated that it was difficult to fulfill the child’s best as it is an open concept that can be interpreted differently depending on the secretary’s individual knowledge and scope. Among the participants there were some of them that had deeper knowledge concerning the principle of the child’s best. This knowledge had been achieved through further education which ensures higher certainty that the child’s best has been fulfilled, but also raises awareness on when participation of the child in collaboration talk is possible. For those secretaries that are lacking this deeper knowledge in this principle agree that there are difficulties to ensure that the child’s best has been fulfilled. Because of the difference in knowledge there were variances in deciding when it was possible for a child to participate in the collaboration talk. Some of the secretaries thought that it was important to get the children involved in collaboration talks, but some thought that collaboration talks were not a platform for small children to participate in. This means that children are encountered in different ways depending on which family law secretary they meet and in what municipality the collaboration talk is held in.

This thesis describes and analyses in three substudies how home-based measures for children are expanding and why an open care idea are established as part of the Swedish child welfare. The first substudy describes the national increment of what today can be considered as a treatment policy – non-institutional care in child welfare. The results are analysed with Kingdon's agenda setting theory and shows that the factors of what Kingdon describes as problems-, politics- and policyflow influenced the national increment. Significant mechanisms have primarily been, the profession, the society's concerns for socially disadvantaged children, negative experiences of institutionalisation and a political position to deinstitutionalise all care. The second substudy focuses on how knowledge and research contributes to ideological, professional, and organizational change in child welfare by analysis of Research & Developments reports and articles from the professional journal Socionomen. Based on the neo-institutional concepts of organisational fields and isoformism the study's results shows that a consequence of adaptation strategies and "rationalized myths" are a number of similarities in how home-based measures are organized and which measures that are used. The third substudy, a case study, analyses how we can understand a local development of ideas in social services for children with concepts from neo institutional theory. Interviews and municipal documents are analysed and shows that the local translation of an open care idea is characterized by discretion, personal preferences and action and affects the choice of method and organization. The study also shows a political mistrust of institutional care while there is at the same time political confidence in the individual social worker's ability to find solutions that allow non-institutional measures to be an alternative to institutional care.

An overall conclusion of the thesis is that there is now a treatment policy in social services for the children, which involves extensive efforts at home and it has led to that more children receive support from social services. One result of non-institutional care increment is that it led to increased costs for municipalities for intervention for children and young people when out-of-home care has not decreased. Another general conclusion is that translation and adaptation of ideas to local contexts is something that generally fits street-level bureaucrats need for discretion.

This study is about job training for people with psycho-social problems without income. The purpose with this sort of job training is to bring these people back to the regular labor market as well as the experience of having a job. In the labor market situation in Sweden today there’s no guarantee that the individual will return to the labor market after having undergone job training. The aim of this study is to understand how supervisors at job training activities experience that the organizations of the activities and resources affect their work. We shall also explore how the supervisors assess if the structure of the activity weaken or enhance the job trainees’ social exclusion. Our research questions are:

1. How are job training activities organized?

2. How do the supervisors work with the job trainees’ social exclusion?

3. How does the structure of the activity affect the supervisors’ discretion?

We have in this study done interviews with supervisors. To understand our result we have used Hasenfelds (1983; 2010) and Lipskys (2010) theories about human service organizations and the discretion of street level bureaucrats.The result shows that the job training activities are organized in different ways. The supervisors work with the social exclusion by creating routines in the every-day life, a social network and increased self-confidence for the job trainees. The result also shows that all the supervisors experience a great discretion in their work but that this discretion is affected by external factors.

Background: The purpose of the present study was to investigate the prevalence and characteristics of deliberate self-harm in a Swedish University population.

Method: A random sample of first year students at University of Kalmar was invited to participate in an Internet-based survey in the autumn of 2007. A total of 139 (53,1 %) completed the anonymous survey.

Results: The results showed that 25,2 % (n=35) of the students reported having engaged in some kind of deliberate self-harm at least once, and deliberate self-harm was endorsed by 7,9 % within the past year. The most frequently procedures to self-harm were to tear, carve or pinch self, cutting skin and hitting self on purpose. 37,1 % reported that they had told no one about their self-injurious behaviors and 36,4 % significantly reported that they had no one they trusted and who they could talk to if they were concerned about something. Students with self-injurious behavior were also more likely to report a history of emotional, sexual and/or physical abuse, alcohol and drug use, cut classes and questioning their sexual orientation.

Conclusions: Findings suggest that self-harm is associated with risk factors and that self-injury is not only associated with adolescence but also with adulthood. It is therefore important to continue studies in both populations.

The aim of this study was to investigate how family law caseworkers in Sweden handle the mediation process in child custody disputes. Three themes were emphasized: the child’s best interest, strategies to maintain the child’s best interest and family conflicts and high-conflict families. To get an understanding of how these themes relate to child custody disputes, I conducted semi-structured interviews with family law caseworkers, since working with custody cases is part of their daily work. I chose a qualitative method because I was striving for diverse and comprehensive responses about family caseworkers’ practical experience in dealing with custody disputes. When asked about the definition of the child’s best interest, all respondents agreed that it is an open concept, implying that the definition depends on the specific circumstances surrounding the case. Generally, the respondents were of the opinion that the child’s best interest is synonymous with joint custody. The respondents stated that they employ different strategies to ensure that the child’s best interest is maintained, which is a result of their relatively high discretion. They stressed that while their primary focus is on dialogue with the parents, they use child testimonies as an additional guidance when determining what constitutes the child’s best in the case at hand. However, they also pointed out that a child’s wishes do not always coincide with the child’s best interest. When it comes to high-conflict families, the respondents concluded that the term has not been established in practice, although the problems associated with such families were recognized. After I presented the formal definition outlined in American research, the respondents agreed that the definition is useful in practice.

The concept of the work-first principle (arbetslinjen) might be considered old, but still serves as the main principle as well as an instrument in the Swedish labour market and social policy today. The original idea was that work and willingness to work was to be rewarded, especially due to a common opposition against the passive receipt of grants. The general definition of work, today, is that it is something desirable that should be achieved and that unemployed primarily will be offered training or work rather than grants and subsidies. When the Moderate party re-launched themselves as Sweden's "workers' party of today", in the beginning of the 2000's, the concept was brought back into the spotlight. In the elections of 2006 and 2010, the labour market was widely debated and become a controversial issue, with the concept of the work-first principle playing a major role.

The purpose of this thesis is to analyse and problematize how the concept was presented and explained in the nationwide newspapers Aftonbladet and Svenska Dagbladet during the 2010 elections, this in order to increase the understanding of the concept’s contemporary definition and policy implications. This was done by analysing news articles, including articles from the debate and cultural sections, as well as editorials in afore mentioned newspapers, through a discourse analytical approach using the conceptual and analytical tools from both the discourse theory and the critical discourse analysis. The result of this thesis shows that the discourse is not primarily a matter of the work-first principle’s existence or nonexistence but rather how it should be defined and what to include. Other main result was that the common definition of the work-first principle and its content, during the election of 2010 (1 January - 19 September), was closely connected to the policy of the, ruling Alliance Government.

The aim of this study was to examine how work integration social enterprise (WISE) established their enterprises. To reach the aim we collected data through qualitative in-terviews from six persons with experience of starting a WISE. Four managers, one exec-utive and one consultant. The research focused on their experience of the enterprises’ start up periods. The research shows that the enterprise is searching for legitimacy from its surrounding but in different ways depending who they are interacting with. The research presented in this study also shows four different factors important to WISE in the estab-lishment process; relations, needs, personal resources and the story about WISE.

Background: Integration of immigrants is an interactive process of learning a new culture, an obtaining of rights, access to a position and status and building of personal relations between migrants and the receiving society. Their ability to reciprocally adjust to intercultural encounters is one of the most important factors of successful integration.

Aim: The purpose of this study is to investigate Swedish young adults perception and attitudes towards immigrants and immigrants’ integration into the Swedish society. Furthermore the aim is to study their perception of social interaction of immigrants and the Swedish host society. How Swedish young adults perceive their country’s immigration policy.

Method: A qualitative research, using an online open-ended questionnaire and in-depth telephone interviews were applied to collect the data about Swedish young adults perceptions and attitudes. The transcribed data were subjected to thematic analysis.

Result: The results of the qualitative research helped to understand Swedish young adults perceptions and attitudes. The findings showed that two of the biggest reasons that Swedish young adults support immigration are: humanitarism and labor force. Swedish young adults are very aware of immigrants’ integration in Sweden. They socialize with immigrants and have contact with them in daily basis. Swedish young adults, have a negative opinion regarding Sweden’s immigration policy

Conclusion: Swedish young adults define immigrants as a people born in one country but move to another (particularly in Sweden) with an intention to reside there permanently. Regarding their acculturation expectations, they support integration as the best acculturation strategy. They think that immigrants in Sweden are “half way” integrated, geographically segregated, discriminated, prejudiced in different degrees and immigrant woman are the most excluded category.

In our paper we chose to study care management in the old age care. According to the law for the social services the needs of elderly should govern the assistance they are granted. But research has shown that municipal guidelines govern the assistance and that the elderly have to adjust their needs to them. Thus there is a discrepancy between law and practice. The aim of this study was to understand how care managers relate to municipal guidelines, laws and the requests of elderly when the application for assistance is established. We wanted to understand what strategies they use to deal with situations when the aforementioned factors are not consistent. The theoretical approaches we chose were Lipsky’s theory of street-level bureaucrats. The method we used was qualitative and consisted of six informal interviews made with care managers in the municipality of Växjö, Sweden. Based on our interviews we identified eight different themes: the availability of resources, directing conversations and the use of routines, legitimize decisions, legitimize through the possibility of entering an appeal, legitimize through constructing the client, the adaptation of the objectives to the possibilities to perform them, diminishing their capability and professionalism. Our conclusion was that the requests of elderly did govern their assistance, as long as they coincided with the municipal guidelines. If the requests fell outside the guidelines it often required medical or social reasons for granting them. The municipal guidelines were never abandoned to create a uniquely designed assistance.

The aim of this study was to understand how social workers deal with honour-related violence, with special focus on the processing from sheltered housing. Our qualitative interviews with social workers that work with this kind of problems show that there are both obstacles and opportunities in the processing from sheltered housing. On the negative side are the loneliness, the shame and the guilt that the girls may experience when they need to leave their families. The social services can both be an obstacles and an opportunity. When the girls need to create a new life in a new city they have a lot of opportunities and in the same time it is hard to get to know new friends when you don´t know the city or have much money. The culture in Sweden and the Swedish norms are governing in an unproblematic way according to the social workers. They also think the girls need to deal with two different macro systems, the culture that the family comes from and the culture in Sweden. To help the girls in this situation requires much energy, time and labour. The professionals think these girls are dreaming about a normal life, but the girls must learn to protect themselves for the rest of their lives. This means that they never will be able to tell anyone the whole story of their background.

Promotion is an institutionally mediated effort to bolster or redirect a person’s health, strength, and other assets to build resilience. We analyse a Swedish version of the Life in Action promotion programme used in secondary schools in three municipalities. Focusing on types of alienation as framed in the programme, we argue that Life in Action’s treatment of the psyche as an object in need of conscious monitoring, nurturing, and enhancement of qualities such as positive attitude and self-discipline signals the teenage participants’ required alienation. Concluding the article, we discuss how this type of alienation may already be present in participating students, and also how it may be necessary for young people about to enter work-life in the era of late capitalism.

I have done a research about how youth councill in Olofströms rural district work in practice and if this conduce to the rural districts work of democracy. My intention is to examine how the youth councill has workt, how it was build up and why did the rural district decide to start a youth councill in Olofström. Did the intentions agree with how the youth councill worked in reality? The choice of subject is to look at how the local democracy work is working in reality. The youth councill is an example on that.

My methods are interviews with politicians in the rural district and close reading of the rural districts minutes and decisions about youth councill and the youth councills bills between 2001 and 2006. The study gives a chronological illustration over which questions were young people interested of during the period. I have come to the conclusion that the youth councill works relative well but not every politician thinks so as it come out of the interwiews. The youth councill has consolidated the democracy work in some extension.

The aim of this study is to research the effect stigmatization has on alcohol and drug abusers. Furthermore the purpose is to understand if stigmatization prevents people from seeking professional treatment in order to overcome their addiction. This is done using a qualitative approach, seeking knowledge on one of Sweden’s biggest online forums, Flashback. In order to gain knowledge from people who themselves suffer from addiction this study is based on several discussions in forum threads where addiction treatment is discussed. To analyse the data and research how stigmatization affects individuals with an addiction Goffman’s theory of stigma is used. To further analyse the result Scheff’s notion of shame and Cooley’s looking-glass self is used. The most prominent way to become free from addiction that was discussed was to strengthen your character or in other ways retake control of your own life. People often thought the reason a person was stuck in addiction was because of weak character or other character flaws. Drug and alcohol abusers was often portrayed as unsuccessful individuals. This shows how stigmatization of drug and alcohol abuse is reproduced. Professional treatment was in some cases discussed as a helpful method to help battle addiction, though not as often as the “strengthen your character” alternative. The result also shows that people stuck in addiction is not a homogeneous group where there is a consensus on how to best battle addiction. In contrast the result shows that everyone seems to carry their own opinion on how to best overcome addiction.

School is one of the areas where social pedagogy has taken on an increasingly important function.Supported by available literature, the aim of this literature review is to describe and analyse how the workof social pedagogues in schools can be manifested. The literature review shows that social pedagogicalwork in schools is common in many countries and emerging in others. The study shows a wide variationboth between and within countries with regard to the mission and goals, status, role and function, tasksand activities of social pedagogues. The primary mission is inclusion of pupil groups or individualswith various types of psychosocial problems or school-related difficulties, followed by preventive workaimed at all pupils to counteract social exclusion in school, disciplining groups of pupils who are invarious ways disrupting or breaking school norms, a consciousness-raising and mobilising mission anda more general teaching mission aimed at citizenship and democratic upbringing. The literature reviewshows that social pedagogy as a profession enjoys high currency and relevance in schools with a view topreventing the segregation and exclusion of pupils.

Aim: The article describes similarities and differences regarding various risk factors between girls and boys with substance abuse problems who begin outpatient treatment at the Maria clinics in Sweden. Potential hypotheses and some implications are also discussed. Methods: This cross-sectional study was based on interview data from 2169 adolescents obtained over three years from outpatient clinics in 11 Swedish cities. Results: Girls appear to consistently have more difficult family and childhood environments than boys, and are more likely to have problems related to school, more serious substance abuse problems, and more severe mental health problems. Criminal activity is significantly higher among boys. Conclusions: The study shows that girls entering treatment generally have significantly more risk factors than boys and thus more extensive problems in several aspects of life, which in turn increases the risk of developing serious drug and alcohol problems in adulthood. The study supports the gender-paradoxical relationship in which a smaller proportion of girls than boys enter treatment for substance abuse, even though girls tend to have more problematic life situations.

The aim of this study is to describe the living conditions of homeless people in the cities of Gothenburg and Karlskrona in Sweden and to analyse their level of social inclusion and social exclusion. The empirical basis of the study was interview responses from 1 148 individuals in connection with initial contact with municipal housing programmes. The study clarifies that people in these programmes are a heterogeneous group in terms of gender, background and current living situation. A majority of the homeless people are living in difficult conditions and are in extremely exposed positions. Three different groups emerged in the analysis of the study population: individuals who are socially included (15%), marginalised (65%) or socially excluded (19%). The article also discusses the various groups’ discrete needs and their implications for preventive as well as more interventional actions on the political and practical levels.

Inter-rater reliability studies are unusual as regards the standardised interview instruments used in the Swedish treatment care system for substance abusers. This article presents the results of a study intended to establish the inter-rater reliability of DOK interviews, through identification of question areas and items with high or low correspondence, and through analysis of how ratings differ between different interviewers.

In total 41 practitioners participated in this study, with various experiences and from six different treatment units of the Swedish treatment care system for substance abusers. Participants gave their ratings and completed the DOK questionnaire based on a video-taped interview. Calculation and analysis of the correspondences were carried out for each individual question area and also each individual item by using appropriate statistical methods. Differences between the various assessors are presented.

The results of the study show that the percentage agreement for the question areas and the items is generally high, with the exception of a few isolated questions.

Among the many possible different explanations for a lack of correspondence is that the questions could be ambiguously constructed and defined or the interview guidelines do not offer satisfactory guidance, or some questions could be too detailed. In addition, a few of the raters may lack sufficient training or experience when it comes to conducting interviews based on DOK. The combined results of the study show that there is a high level of inter-rater reliability, which indicates that in practice it is possible to utilise structured interviews such as DOK.

In the discussion on knowledge development in social work, structured interviews have attracted an increasing amount of attention. The aim of this thesis is to examine and analyze how structured interviews can serve as a basis in the compilation and development of knowledge for practice and research in addiction treatment. More precisely, it means a problematization of the methodological issues that are of central importance in studying treatment outcomes, in which structured interviews form the basis. The methodological aspects in focus here are scientific concepts such as reliability, validity and specific factors in the evaluation of treatment interventions. A further objective is to outline a model for analysis when compiling and evaluating treatment outcome.

The five empirical studies have been conducted in their natural context, in organisations in which structured interviews with clients are carried out as an everyday routine and used for e.g. treatment planning. The structured interview DOK (a Swedish abbreviation for Documentation of clients) is used as a basis and an example for the empirical studies in this thesis.

The validation studies show that the DOK interview generally attains a good level of reliability and validity, but also contains a small number of variables that do not live up to the requirements which may be imposed. Deficiencies in operationalization and question construction seem to have a large impact. Another conclusion is that it is possible to carry out validation studies, where each variable is examined separately and evaluated with the aid of both sound methodological starting points and relevant statistical theory. Another of the central questions, the thesis addresses, is how structured interviews can be used as a basis for evaluation of treatment. The two studies which highlight this issue show that it is obvious that structured interviews are suitable for such a purpose, through its standardized form and multi-dimensional nature.

Validation of structured interviews or evaluation of social interventions should not be reduced to single numbers or values. The multidimensional nature of the structured interview shall also be reflected in the results and analysis. The thesis presents an analysis model for evaluating treatment outcome in relation to two empirical examples and foregoing theoretical starting points. Our view is that structured interviews can provide a link between practice and research and thus contribute to the development of knowledge in social work and substance abuse treatment.

The PARTISPACE study aims at undertaking a comparative analysis of youth participation or their involvement and engagement in decisions 'which concern them and, in general, the life of their communities' (European Commission, 2001a: 8). The central research question of the project is how and where 15- and 30 year-old young people do participate differently across social milieus and youth cultural scenes and across eight European cities (framed by different national welfare, education and youth policies). What styles of participation do they prefer, develop and apply and in what spaces does participation take place? Answers to these questions could improve the understanding of the complexities and contradictions of youth participation – on the side of policy makers as well as on the side of young people – and thereby help empowering young people in participating in society, renovating also concepts, definitions and discourses on what (youth) participation is, could and should be. The eight European cities in which we conduct the study are Bologna (IT), Eskisehir (TK), Frankfurt (DE), Gothenburg (SE), Manchester (UK), Plovdiv (BG), Rennes (FR) and Zurich (CH). They do not represent but secure contrasting contexts of young people’s growing up as well as differing orientations towards Europe. Although embedded in different national and local contexts, these eight cities are comparable in terms of dimension and relevance in the respective country. This ensures a sufficient provision and diversity of participatory settings without being too close to representative national government institutions and umbrella structures.

The aim of this study was to examine the occurence of norms in court cases regarding the Swedish law of support and service for disabled (Lag 1993:387 om stöd och service till vissa funktionshindrade) with the help of a discourse analysis method. More specifically its aim was to examine and identify norms in the different dictums/statements that were to be found in the court cases regarding the supportive institution "contact person" according to the Swedish law "LSS" with the help of a norm science approach. The aim was also to examine when the applicant was found to be entitled to a contact person according to the LSS-law. To be able to do this, the author studied thirty-four different court cases. In these cases six themes were found, that indicated the occurence of norms. The conclusion was that there were indeed norms occurring in the court cases, due to a normative legislation and therefore the interpretations of the legislation also become normative, but also due to the fact that judges and social workers incorporate their own internalized societal norms in their judgements.

Economic violence is a relatively unexplored subject even though it is often a part of occuring intimate partner violence. Therefore it is of concern to acknowledge how the swedish social services’ take part in this form of violence in their work. By law the swedish social services’ are the responsible authorities for victims of intimate partner violence to seek help and support. Although according to previous research on the subject, women feel like receiving help from the social services is not always an option for them. Women often feel powerless in meetings with a person of authority. This study aims to gain knowledge of the support given by the social services to women who are survivors of domestic abuse and further focus on economic abuse. There is also an understanding that non profit organizations (NGO’s) are a big contributor to helping survivors of domestic violence even though the law states the responsibility lays on a government body. Responsibility for the victims will therefore be another focus for further understanding of why NGO’s have taken on a helping role in society. A result from qualitative interviews on the subjects, with social workers from seven different municipalities, shows that there is a great variation between how social workers take on this kind of issue. The knowledge and experiences with handling cases of economic abuse vary between the different municipalities. Often the size of a municipality and lack of resources is a significant factor to what kind of help the municipality can offer. Working with and helping women who are survivors of economic abuse is complex. The social services and women shelters both work to help and try to find solutions for the problem.